


One Night in Romania

by smolqueernerds



Category: The Ever Afters Series - Shelby Bach
Genre: F/F, Millie goes after what she wants, Sebastian is a drama queen, Solange has no chill, all of this totally happened, lots of somewhat purposeful runon sentences bc aRT, rated for making out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6191266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolqueernerds/pseuds/smolqueernerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Your OTP is out camping in the woods with their friend(s). One friend tells a ghost story, and Person A of your OTP becomes scared and insists on cuddling up to Person B that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Night in Romania

“You know,” Sebastian says slyly, his eyebrows arching invitingly, “I once heard a very interesting story about this forest.” He draws the words out with a lingering smirk. Solange can hear the anticipation sizzling behind his painful affectation of nonchalance.  
“Oh, come off it, Seb,” she says with a groan, drawing her knees up to her chest. “You didn’t know this place existed until yesterday.”  
“Sol, you know how good I am at garnering gossip from the locals…”  
She gives him a flat stare. “We haven’t seen any locals.”  
“I distinctly remember a woodsman yesterday---”  
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize waving your weapon at someone and sending them running hell-for-leather constituted _garnering gossip.”_  
“It was intended as a come-hither-my-good-man gesture.”  
“While holding a broadsword the length of your---”  
Mildred, always the peacemaker, interrupts. “Seb, tell your story, so we can all go to sleep. I don’t know about you two, but I don’t care for confronting a giant on anything less than eight hours of rest.” She gives Solange a look of entreaty.  
As always, Solange surrenders to those pleading eyes. “Fine. Make it quick, Seb.”  
Rubbing his hands together, Sebastian scoots in closer to the fire. Solange and Mildred follow suit, inhaling the rich scent of woodsmoke.  
“A few centuries ago,” Sebastian begins, the fire turning his skin stark white and the angles of his face skeletal (Solange knows he’s doing it on purpose somehow, that _fils d' une sirène_), “a traveling preacher was roaming this country, giving sermons to villagers. He was tall and gaunt, with sharp features and sunken eyes. As his sermons were free, he was penniless, living off what sustenance he could forage for in the woods and the charity of the awed men and women who came to hear him speak. After all, what was a little bread and cheese compared to being snatched from the jaws of perdition?” He accompanies this phrase with a twist of his fingers, as if snatching something out of the air, and then gnashes his teeth, producing the most god-awful sound. “Everyone who heard him speak repented on the spot. Often they dashed from their seats to prostrate themselves on the ground before him, begging to be granted absolution, which he granted only after he made them swear on the Holy Bible to hereafter live in perfect virtue. They did so gladly, kissing his feet and weeping in gratitude---”  
“If I was kissing someone’s noxious feet,” Solange mutters, “gratitude wouldn’t be what I was crying for.”  
Millie stifles an abrupt giggle and Sebastian shoots her a look that’s not nearly as deadly as he thinks it is before continuing. “One day, though, a group of men at one of his sermons --- arrogant, indolent, _sinful_ men---” (Solange resists the urge to make a crack about _funny, aren’t you usually such a_ jouisseur _of that type?_) “---were too thick-skulled to hear the shining truths in his words. Instead, they stood up and publicly scorned him. Once, twice, three times they proudly denounced his offers of redemption and called him vile names I shall not deign to repeat. The preacher looked at them, pointed one long finger their direction, and said, ‘I can see Satan’s mark on your souls.’”  
(The raspy voice Sebastian adopts here is quite impressive, actually, and if Solange let children’s tales spook her she might be feeling a little shiver. She glances sideways to see how Millie’s holding up, but she can’t see her expression, just the firelight glinting off her hair and flushing her cheeks and she should probably stop looking now.)  
“‘His mark burns with a thousand unholy fires,’” Sebastian rasps, “‘and I fear that my strongest blessings will not be enough to quench it, as long as it has your tainted spirits for tinder to fuel it.’ And upon hearing this, the other townspeople arose in righteous fury, and took it upon themselves to band together drive the evildoers out into the forests with torches and pitchforks, and thus the village was made pure again. But the preacher had to travel onward through that same forest to reach the next village, and it was in that forest (the very same one we’re in now, by the way) that the angry men captured him, beat him viciously, throttled him lifeless, and hung him in a tree for the crows to eat.  
“But even in death, the preacher’s quest to end sin did not end. Centuries later, his vengeful spirit still stalks these woods, ten feet tall with knives for fingernails and ghostly flames that flicker in his eye sockets.” Sebastian pulls down the skin under his eyes in an accompanying gesture that makes him look sleepless, though it’s probably meant to make him look dead. “And when he finds a sinner, he reaches right into their body, pulls out their soul, and crushes it to powder.” He smiles cheerily. “The End!”  
Solange spares a few moments for sarcastic applause, then turns around and begins hunting for her blanket.  
Sebastian falls asleep first, as usual; his whistling snores start minutes after he settles down. Solange used to find this noise irritating, but it’s become an expected thing, comforting background noise. (She still complains about it, though.)  
Lying on her back, Solange stares up at the Romanian night sky and traces patterns in the stars, waiting for her eyelids to grow heavy and her breathing to slow. She finds the shapes of an apple, a heart, a dog, and a dragon before she hears a rustling behind her. Fatigue has made her reflexes sloppy, and she doesn’t have time to reach for her weapon or cry out for help before a warm body slides under the blanket with her and this is worse, so much worse than an intruder would have been, even one with ill intent. She could have taken them out with a simple stab of a dagger. This problem is one she’s been dealing with for months and it seems to have no intention of ever going away.  
“It’s me,” Millie says, quite unnecessarily. “Can I…can I talk to you?”  
After a few fruitless attempts, Solange manages to roll onto her other side and face Millie, even though this puts them literally nose to nose. The fire is flickering low, and all Solange can see of Millie’s face is a dim outline, which just makes her want to reach out and explore the familiar angles of her nose and mouth and cheekbones with her fingers. And possibly her lips (definitely her lips). She smells like lavender soap and woodsmoke, and Solange wants to bury her nose in the crook of Millie’s neck and inhale the scent and the heat of her skin. Their knees and foreheads are touching, their fingers brushing, and Solange stiffens all her muscles to keep from succumbing to the urge to move closer.  
“What do you want to talk about?” she asks, trying to keep her voice light and unconcerned, like her pulse isn’t racing from Millie’s proximity.  
A pause. Then Millie lets out a resigned little sigh, her exhalation setting a few loose strands of Solange’s hair to trembling (like the rest of Solange isn’t already doing so). “Seb’s story --- well, it kind of made me, uh---”  
Solange involuntarily snorts, and a familiar something between relief and exasperation blossoms in her chest. Comforting Millie she’s used to. “It’s just a story, Millie. Seb just made it up off the top of his big fat head --- there’s no one around he could have heard it from. There never was such a preacher, or---”  
“I know,” Millie interrupts. “I know none of it was real. It just made me think, and so I… I wanted to ask you something.”  
“Well, come on then. What is it?”  
Another pause. “Do you…. do you think love can really be a sin?”  
Solange is taken aback by this question, slightly because hearing the word _love_ from Millie’s lips always makes her feel a little weak no matter the context, and mostly because she doesn’t know what it means. “Do you mean lust?” she says, before remembering that that’s the absolute last thing she wants to bring up around Millie for many, many reasons.  
Millie shakes her head, and Solange is quite positive she’s blushing even though she can’t see evidence of it in this dark. “Love,” she repeats. “Regardless of… of everything else, can loving someone, just loving them, be wrong?” Her voice wavers on the last word, and for that second, anguish slips through. Solange suddenly knows that this isn’t the first time she’s asked that question, though it’s probably the first time she’s said it aloud.  
Closing her eyes, Solange suddenly hears whispers, floating along on the breeze. The words uttered are familiar, so familiar, and the voices too. _Where have you been, Solange? School ended hours ago. You should have been right home. Solange, I don’t want to hear any more excuses, you need to grow up. This is what life has in store for you, and it’s high time you accepted it. Now, go out there and smile like you mean it, or I’ll give you something to frown about. Solange, these childish games of yours need to stop. I mean it this time. Solange, this is the price you pay to get what you want in life. Don’t be ridiculous, of course you want this. Solange, this is for your own good. Solange, cherie, I’m only doing this because I love you._  
But she sees things, too, flashing behind her eyelids. She sees the oil painting that hangs on her bedroom wall, of her mother tenderly cradling an infant with white-blonde hair, a dreamy smile upon her lips. She sees her father and stepmother on the couch, leaning into each other with eyes closed after long days at work, Rapunzel snuggled in between them. She sees Sebastian’s face when he’s looking at the pretty copper-haired boy who got Jack and the Beanstalk last year, all wide eyes and unaware dimpled smiles like he’s witnessing a miracle, and Millie’s face when she’s trying not to laugh, lips puckering to stop her smile, eyes sparkling with guilty delight.  
“No,” she says, opening her eyes. “The things you do because of love, those can sometimes be sins. But the love itself, if it’s real? That’s never wrong.”  
“Thank you,” Millie whispers fervently, and in the next instant her lips crash down on Solange’s.  
A kiss, as it turns out, is an awkward thing, filled with too many foreheads and noses, and all the imagined ones in the world aren’t enough to prepare you for the shaky breaths into your mouth or the eyelashes brushing your skin. It takes Solange several moments to figure out how one kisses back, and she’s still not sure if this is quite how it should be done, but Millie is a very forgiving partner and Solange feels confident in taking her hoarse murmurs of affirmation as good signs.  
The kiss quickly moves from a wild jumble of lips and teeth and tongues to something steadier, more rhythmic. It reminds Solange of dancing or dueling or playing chess. They part briefly for breath, and Solange’s last shred of doubt that this is real leaves her, because the wild, luminous smile on Millie’s face is better than anything she could have imagined---  
Oh. Oh no. Oh, no. This is real. This is actually and truly the girl Solange has been pining after for months, kissing her outside of dreams for the first time, and it’s an absolute disaster.  
Millie’s forehead creases. “What’s wrong?” she asks, her smile falling away.  
“Millie,” Solange says, struggling to find the words, “this is--- this is real. If we do this, it’s real, and it could be dangerous for you.”  
“And not for you?”  
“I don’t care what happens to me,” Solange tells her, “but I won’t let you---”  
“Sol.” Millie cuts her off. Her expression is serious in a way Solange has never seen before (and “Serious” is practically Millie’s middle name; she’s never actually told them what her “S” initial stands for, so it’s entirely possible), “I know what I want. I know who I want. I know the risks, and I know it’s worth it. I’ve had a long time to think about this, and I’ve made up my mind on the subject.” She brushes a strand of hair back from Solange’s cheek, tucking it behind her ear. “How about you?”  
Solange reaches out and takes Millie’s hand in her own, bringing it to her face. She kisses the calluses on her palm, the ones she knows Millie spends evenings futilely trying to scrub away with salt and stone, the ones she loves to feel against her skin when they hold hands. “_Ma cherie_, I’ve never cared what anybody thinks of me, and I’ve wanted to love you like this since the day I met you.”  
Millie giggles. “Really?”  
“Just about,” Solange tells her, recollecting her first sight of her best friend; a beautiful blonde girl in long cotton skirts standing in weapons class, seemingly unarmed. Mute and motionless, she looked just like any of the prissy debutantes Solange’s mother always held up to her as an example of what she should be doing (except for her simple dress). But then her assigned dummy moved, and the girl yanked out an eight-inch blade from a previously invisible slit in her skirts and set to slashing. That first image of her as a warrior princess, a delicate flower with hidden thorns, was enough to make Solange’s mouth go dry and her heart drop down into her toes, though she wasn’t sure why at the time; she went over to the girl the minute class ended, introduced herself, and asked if she’d give her a few tips. Solange will always be an abysmal swordswoman, but that doesn’t matter.  
“It took me a little longer,” Millie murmurs, leaning closer, “but I got there.”  
When their lips meet again, every inch of Solange’s skin prickles with heat, and sweetness floods her veins. If she had one wish right this instant, it would be to spend forever curled up in her best friend’s arms.  
Solange runs her fingertips along Millie’s cheekbones, tangles a hand in her hair and curls the other around the back of her neck. She can feel Millie’s mouth curving upward under her own as her hands wrap around Solange’s waist, pulling her closer.  
Supposedly, every inch of Solange de Chateies’ life is mapped out for her by destiny. Nothing’s ever felt as fated as this night. She is incandescent with adoration, devotion, and desire for this shining girl before her, and right now she’d kick any person or god who says this is wrong right in the teeth, and then a more sensitive area, because more than anything else in her entire life Mildred Grubb is right for her.  
“We need to sleep,” Solange whispers eventually, pulling back a few inches. Millie makes a noise of protest, and that alone is enough to awaken the urge to kiss her all over again, but she pushes on, resolute. “You _said_ eight hours of rest---”  
“I just wanted to keep Seb from talking for too long!” Millie objects.  
“Yeah, but you were right anyway. I’m going to sleep.” Solange rolls onto her side and closes her eyes, and after a minute she hears a grumbled assent in her ear and feels an arm wrap around her waist.  
“Good night, Sol,” Millie says, her voice slightly muffled by Solange’s hair.  
Solange smiles into the darkness. “Good night.”  
The next morning, Sebastian looks at Solange with suspicious eyes when she comes for her share of the porridge he’s cooking over the fire. She returns the gaze with the most innocent look she can muster as she dishes up a bowl, but Millie comes up behind her and hugs her around the waist with an absentminded “morning” before heading out to find her own bowl, and Solange can’t stop her features from dissolving into a ludicrous grin as she watches her retreating back. When she looks back over at Sebastian,he’s smiling far too widely. She tries to glare at him, but she can’t summon the anger.  
“You weren’t sleeping alone this morning,” he comments casually, ladling more porridge into his bowl.  
“She got cold last night and asked if we could share,” she answers, sticking a spoon into the thick, glutinous mess, and for once he leaves it at that. In gratitude, Solange refrains from telling him that he burned the porridge, as usual.  
After breakfast, they pack up and head out. While Romania is liberally supplied with castles, it’s easy enough to track down the one that’s inhabited by that pesky thirty-foot villager-eating giant; just follow the trail of enormous footprints. Once they’re there, Solange’s lung power and Sebastian’s snare-setting skills make trapping him fairly easy; due to their enormous heights and thin skulls, most giants can crush their brains simply by tripping and hitting their head. Granted, they destroy a beautiful, historic piece of Romanian architecture in the process, and get covered in pulverized stone besides, but Solange considers it a job well done.  
Millie pulls her aside for a celebratory kiss behind a nearby tree, afterward, and when Solange closes her eyes, she sees stars and breathes in possibility.


End file.
